Top 20 Advanced Technological Achievements in the Last few Decades

Humans are marvellous creatures, not only in terms of cognitive and physical dominance but also the continuous pursuit of perfection! The amount of inventions and advancements in the technological field is infinite in the past decades that have fuelled our zeal for more! Every now and then a new invention sees the light of the day but only few have lasted to leave a significant impact on our lives.

This blog sheds light on the top 20 advanced technological achievements of humans that have been made in the last few decades.

The Human Genome Project

The human Genome project was the most radical and innovational advancement in the modern science field that was accomplished in 2003. The entire human genome was successfully sequenced with roughly 23,000 genes that aided in getting answers to various unanswered questions about our genome. It solved answers related to different scientific areas, such as treatment of genetic diseases, identifying the genes responsible for diseases, human evolution, molecular biology and medical science. Human genome project transformed medical science wonderfully and led to a boom in biotechnology accompanying various biotech companies to implement medical applications based on the knowledge.  

AbioCor Artificial Heart

AbioMed, a Massachusetts based company brought a revolutionary innovation in the medical science with the creation of AbioCor-an artificial heart. AbioCor became the first ever artificial heart to successfully take place of a human heart in heart transplant operations. The artificial heart from AbioMed is a revelation in many forms. It is able to charge itself and is completely wire-free. This separates it distinctively from other artificial hearts as AbioCor has very low chances for infections and high natality rate. Hats-off to the whole AbioMed team for such commendable accomplishment!

Gene Editing technology

Gene editing technology eliminates the culprit DNA responsible for causing disease. Bacterial immune system called as CRISPR was identified by researchers from Harvard University, the University of California and the Broad institute in 2012 as a potential gene editing tool. It could be used to change the DNA of an organism. This is a major discovery which will serve a huge favour to humankind.

Search engines

Internet revolution started in the 90’s when the World wide Web was invented. From thereon, internet have not looked back and have been supported with more advanced platforms. Search engines were launched as searching tools for WWW. Top search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing have held a decent share of internet dominance since then. Search engines have revolutionized the way that people look up internet for information. The world wide usage and scale of prominence can be estimated by the fact that there are more than 200 million searches that are made every hour on search engines. Search engines are basically your guides for directing you to your desired source of information.

Social media channels

We all adore social media nowadays as it has become the best media to stay connected with our friends and people across the world. Social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, twitter have their own style of social engagement. Facebook and twitter are heavily based on texual connection whereas Youtube and Instagram are more visual based media where images and videos makes 99% of the content.  Either ways, social media covers everything from sharing tutorial videos to academic knowledge worldwide.

The Global Positioning System

In order to make navigation and physical location searches easy, global positioning tech was invented in 1973. But it was not until 1995 that GPS reached the market for commercial purpose. Global positioning system utilizes satellites to select a location and makes it easy to do accurate navigation of unknown places. Despite making users self-dependent, GPS technology have helped turning global regions into smart cities. Not even finding locations, it also helps in finding a person’s address hence has an elaborative range of applications available for making our lives easier.  

Smartphones

The most significant invention that brought humans together was telephones among others. In the following decades, landline phones advanced into mobile phones which were cordless and hence portable. But technology did not stop there. With the innovative idea of touchscreens, mobile phones culminated into more advanced versions which was marked by the launch of iphones from Apple in 2007. The so called smartphones were equipped with touchscreen features and had huge commercial appeal. The iPhones were obviously a hit and served as an inspiration for other similar products from different mobile manufacturing companies. Sooner, markets were flooded with all kinds of smartphones with potential to entice customers from various social classes. Nowadays, smartphones have become an integral asset for managing our lives. Over a billion people possess smartphones globally and stay connected withone another through more advanced interactive possibilities. Smartphones serve as a portable notebook where you can record your daily logs, share images and videos, play games, listen to your favourite music and so much more! Smartphones serves the original purpose of phone in addition to multiple ways of establishing contact such as through calls, texts and video. With progressive features like internet banking and navigation, smartphones have become a must have essential item for the modern world. It is astonishing to see how far we have come since the ages of making contact with wired landline phones.

Bluetooth

2000s marked the era of Bluetooth technology that have now dominated computers and mobile phones. For sharing files to making contact, Bluetooth has evolved in diverse applications. It has became an integral part of corporate industry where its applications are worth life saving.

Google Maps

Paper maps and complicated routes are history items now, thanks to the advanced mapping system of Google that was launched in 2005. Google map is a tool that provides accurate geographical information just with a click on your computer. Now, Google maps is available as an App for smartphones and thus can be carried around as digital maps. It also suggests any alternative route that is best as per current conditions. Moreover, it alerts you about any obstacle that might prevent you from reaching your destination. Google maps are highly reliable as long as you keep updating its latest versions.  

3D Printing

3D printing is not a novel invention. They were invented in the 80’s but I have included them in this list because of the revolutionary wave that has occurred in the past few decades due to cheaper manufacturing methods and open-source software. 3D printed objects were quite a rage in the past year and were widely shared on social media all over the world. Nowadays, the type of things we can make on 3D printers are infinite. From printing spare parts to bionic limbs, everything is entirely possible.

USB Flash and hard Drives

USB flash drives were introduced in 2000 by IBM as a storage device which can easily store heavy files. The users can store their images, videos and files on these drives which are easily portable, removable and rewritable. These devices are lifesavers with their generous flash memory size available in various forms. More storage devices were devised further and hard drives with much more storage capacity were introduced. Decades ago, the only feasible option available for file storing was computers. With following years floppy disks came into light but they don’t stand anywhere close to flash and hard drives in terms of storage capacity. For example, disks have limited memory size of 2 mb whereas the drives have various sizes that start from Giga bytes, greater capacity than mb.

Quantum computing

Quantum computer makes use of quantum mechanics to solve various problems in very less time. In 2019, such computer have been said to be made which have very high processing capability. It is said to solve a problem faster than a standard computer, which is less than 200 seconds! This will progressively shape our lives at more directed and fast pace.

Stem Cell Research

The stem cell research technology is the ultimate panacea of all medical discoveries. The idea of growing a fully functional organ from a group of cells is now made possible through this technology. All the essential organs heart, lungs, brain, kidney can be grown from stem cells. Even the slightest delay can cost a life but with this technology there would be no long waits for a compatible organ donor or other formalities to be fulfilled.

Curiosity, the Mars Rover

The concept of us earthlings not being alone was strengthened in 2011, when the mars rover- Curiosity was launched to space to find signs of life on Mars and after 3 years made the discovery of the millennium. It found water on the Matian surface, proof of earth-like conditions which could be found on other planets as well. It’s only a matter of time now when the biggest mystery of the universe will be solved and we will finaly find out our interplanetary neighbours.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

The large Hadron Collider dominated many newspaper headlines in 2013 when it successfully completed its test run. It is the world’s most powerful single machine particle accelerator, largest as well among its kind. It aids scientists and researchers to facilitate experiments on various complex theories in physics. Higgs-Boson particle is one of its most important findings so far. The discovery of Higgs-Boson particle provides massive support to the standard model of particle physics. This gives explanation of the fundamental forces that exist in the universe.

Diagonal elevators

Elevators are an important human invention that are an essential part of the core structure of skyscrapers. It is a marvellous architectural achievement that has aided generations. Primarily designed to operate in vertical direction, now elevators have been introduced with a new upgrade- being able to move vertically and horizontally! MULTI is the first ever elevator that can accomplish this task. Elevators affect basic building designs in terms of giving more challenges and improvements. An elevator that can take you to any direction will definitely bring revolutionary changes in the urban developmental plans.

Hybrid cars

Cars are basically the most convenient mode of transportation as well as the most popular ones. With growing demands of more upgraded automobiles, the ambitious project of hybrid cars came into light. First, cars that run on electricity were invented which were added with latest obsession with the autonomous technology in form of self-driving cars. Electric cars have gained quite popularity over the decade as they need to be charged rather than fuelled up to run. More convenient and environment friendly mode of a car. The self driving cars or driver-less cars are more revolutional as they entirely negate the need to pay attention on the road all the time while driving. Google made self driving cars have displayed flawless driving, encouraging more automobile manufacturing companies. You can read about self-driving cars in my other blog titled-“How Ambitious is the idea of Autonomous driving?”

It is not too far when we will be safely escorted from our locations via driverless cars. The future holds many more wonders for us.

E books

Good news for heavy readers that dislike only one thing about books-their weight! With launch of contents of books available on internet somewhere around 2007, reading books have never been more convenient. Now there is need to carry a pile of books that contain only an ounce of information each. E-books have become an excellent media for writers to reach their audience on larger scale and without having to take rejections from a publishing house for their scripts.

Reusable rocket launch

In 2015, SpaceX and Blue Origin have accomplished the unaccomplishable. The unrelated companies successfully launched reusable rockets and were able to land them safetly. Thus serving the purpose of cheap space travel and promising our future generations with commercial space travels that were previously possible only in science- fiction.